[2] The scientific name Ardea insignis was suggested by Brian Houghton Hodgson in 1844; he had presented a zoological specimen to the British Museum but a description was not published.

[5] In 1878, Allan Octavian Hume described the differences between the white-bellied and the great-billed heron (Ardea sumatrana) while using the binomial name suggested by Hodgson.

In breeding plumage, it has a greyish-white nape plume and elongated grey breast feathers with white centers.

[12] The white-bellied heron inhabits the wetlands of tropical and subtropical forests in the foothills of the eastern Himalayas of northeast India and Myanmar.

[12] It was observed breeding in the Sankosh and Mangdechhu river basins; nests were found in chir pine (Pinus roxburghii), champak (Magnolia champaca) and bayur trees (Pterospermum acerifolium) at elevations of 400–1,430 m (1,310–4,690 ft).

[23] During the day, it roosts for long periods of up to six hours on bare sandy patches, large rocks, logs and trees, and sometimes lies down on its sternum.

[12] It feeds mostly on Schizothorax carps all year through, but also on brown trout (Salmo trutta) in spring and Garra fish species during the summer.

[1] In Bhutan, four large hydropower projects are located in important white-bellied heron habitat, and rivers are exploited for gravel and sand mining.